''BEAUTY ACCURST''
I am so fair that wheresoe'er I wend
{{gap}}Men yearn with strange desire to kiss my face,
Stretch out their hands to touch me as I pass,
{{gap}}And women follow me from place to place.

A poet writing honey of his dear
{{gap}}Leaves the wet page, — ah. leaves it long to dry,
The bride forgets it is her marriage morn,
{{gap}}The bridegroom too forgets as I go by.

Within the street where my strange feet shall stray
{{gap}}All markets hush and traffickers forget,
In my gold head forget their meaner gold,
{{gap}}The poor man grows unmindul of his debt.

Two lovers kissing in a secret place,
{{gap}}Should I draw nigh, will never kiss again;
I come between the king and his desire,
{{gap}}And where I am all loving else is vain.

Lo! as I walk along the woodland way
{{gap}}Strange creatures leer at me with uncouth love,
And from the grass reach upward to my breast.
{{gap}}And to my mouth lean from the boughs above.

The sleepy kine move round me in desire
{{gap}}And press their oozy lips upon my hair,
Toads kiss my feet and creatures of the mire,
{{gap}}The snails will leave their shells to watch me there.

But all this worship — what is it to me?
{{gap}}I smite the ox and crush the toad in death,
I only know I am so very fair
{{gap}}And that the world was made to give me breath.

I only wait the hour when God shall rise
{{gap}}Up from the star where he so long hath sat,
And bow before the wonder of my eyes,
{{gap}}And set me there — I am so fair as that. {{right|
{{sc|Richard Le Gallienne.}}}}